


Let this House be a Home

by shades_of_jade



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Family, Fluff, Hamliza, Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22668481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shades_of_jade/pseuds/shades_of_jade
Summary: A few short stories on Alexander and Eliza's path to becoming parents. Lots of fluff and cute stuff <3
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Hamliza - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	1. Five is Enough

Children. 

The idea itself of them had been a constant thought in Alexander’s mind. It was a thought that seemed ever distant, while simultaneously tangible, like how one’s breath on a cold morning would be there, able to reach out and grasp, and then gone. 

Children had been proposed to him from the very night he and Eliza had wed. His father-in-law had mentioned them, in jest, through a finger poked into his ribs. Angelica, cheeks fair and bright from champagne, had laughed that he had better sire at least a few fine looking specimens to call his own lest he keep his good looks to himself. Laurens had not so subtly (and rather, very surly) whispered question to Eliza if she already had something in her stomach, and Alex had to restrain Hercules Mulligan from clobbering the drunk before he even had the chance to be upset. 

Though mentioned in jest, and the most innocent jest of all, these children whom did not yet exist seemed almost like a threat to Alexander. As soft as it seemed they could be, as pure and honest, they also held many inexplicable risks. Being a man of great reason, he would often find himself in reflection on each of them. 

Firstly, children were a great burden. As many good natured things that they brought into the lives of their parents, they undoubtedly weighed them down. Financially, emotionally, and at times even literally. This, in turn, slowed them down, and Alex was not looking to be slowed down in any way, not yet. 

As well, children had no respect toward time. They often arrived unannounced, and could upheave ones life in moments flat. They stole time unknowingly, and unforgivingly, and took without a thought of return. 

Though full of hope, children were vulnerable things. How easily they could succumb to fever or flu or simply in their sleep into death’s arms. How merciless an end this was, to leave behind in absence the one’s that nursed them. How hopeless, then, would life be in their wake?

After all, Alexander was all too well acquainted with every one of these reasons. He had seen and known firsthand that the idyllic family unit was very well as fragile as the wings of a stunted butterfly in the face of hardship. He knew how terribly mothers suffered for their own, and how cruel and painful this suffering could be. He knew how cold and unfeeling fathers could grow, and how icy this sentiment was to the touch and in one’s gaze. He knew how quickly children made things fall apart, and how helpless they could feel by doing so. 

Alexander would never wish that upon any child. 

All this to say, he was not against children in any way, believing in his God given right to sire them. He simply wished it was all not so … _much_. 

It was on the eleventh day of their honeymoon, the first Christmas Day spent in company as newlyweds, that they subject had come up between Eliza and himself. Company had left a few hours prior, and after they had tidied the sitting rooms and put away the dishes and gathered the last of the popped corn from the floors, Alexander had nestled close to his wife before the fire. 

“I think … five is enough.”

Alex, who had been bobbing off to sleep, had blinked and focused again on Eliza’s face. Her head rested on his lap, brown hair pooling near her rosy cheeks, and she had repeated before he asked her to do so. 

“Five is enough, I think.”

“Enough?” He yawned, lolling his head to and fro to stretch out the kinks. Eliza reach a hand there, to his neck, sympathetically. 

“Sore?"

“I had surmised that arm wrestling with Hercules had been a good idea when Laurens put me up to it. Must have been the scotch talking.”

“As it often does. Angelica told me you lost - “

“In my defence, the man has cheated against me tenfold at euchre, and I have done nothing to warrant it! I thought I would allow him these honest victories, if not to encourage integrity going forward - “

“Alexander, speaking as the woman who has beaten you tenfold, you are _terrible_ at euchre!” 

“… ah, yes. Maybe the cheating was of my own doing, then.”

Eliza hit him gently, and Alex chuckled and rubbed his eyes, feeling the throb of alcohol behind them. Remembering the comment that had roused him, however, he asked. 

“You mentioned that five is enough?"

“Yes. How does it sound to you?”

On her face, he saw a test, in the curve of her brow and the curl of her lips. Alex scrutinized the expression, inferring best he could what exactly she was meaning to say. It was a game they often played with one another, one of trust; not a competition but rather an invitation. It welcomed one another, whisking away words to wander about the others face, to study and know deeper. 

_A cocked brow indicates pleasure, this I know for certain._ Alexander pondered, a hand idly stroking Eliza’s as he did so. _Though her bottom lip is still - its trembling would indicate a humorous intent. So, she is sincere … but not without anticipation. Her words carry weight. Five … what does she suppose by five if not -_

“How easily your silence bores me,” Eliza rolled her eyes after a moment longer under his scrutiny, tucking her chin away from him into her shoulder. “I certainly didn’t marry you for that.” 

On her face it seemed she supposed he had given up, and before she could turn away further Alexander stilled her, fingers catching the side of her face. 

He whispered, “Five is certainly enough, my love. Why, if not five, than seven, or eight! I adore you far too much to deprive myself of even the possibility of a glimpse of you in another. So let this house be a home, and let our children run it to ruins, and us with it.”

Eliza had giggled, that laugh the same one that had captured him the first they had met, and she was in his arms, and he in hers, her voice high and gleeful in his ear. 

“And you will be the very best of fathers, Alexander; this I know so dearly, and truly, above all."

_How thoughtful she can be_ , Alexander had mused in that moment, holding her closer, more tightly, as he could do now that he was her husband. _How thoughtful, and warm._

Dark brown eyes caught his and lured that smile from him only she could summon. In that moment, he hoped that these children - wherever they where, and whenever they would find them - would have those eyes as well. 

But most of all, he hoped that Eliza’s words were true. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy valentine's day here's some cute hamliza

It was a furious and inexplicably uncomfortable carriage ride back to Albany. 

Alexander was far too restless to sleep anyways, resigning instead to scribble a few of his thoughts in the small journal he kept in his trousers, but had he desired it would have been in vain. A layman would not be chided if he took the words written as nothing but chicken scratch; Alexander himself could not even decipher it. 

Closing the leather cover resentfully, Alex mumbled to himself just the same, “This driver must be either grossly incapacitated or simply a bastard at his vocation.” 

He was being so jostled and knocked about he felt bruises worse than ones he would find after a night stationed watch, lying prostrate in the dirt and stones at the bottom of a bunker -

Elbow colliding with the wall of the carriage in a thud, he inhaled the twinge sharply through clenched teeth. 

Like it had so many times over the hours of his journey, Alex cursed again in a whispered breath, a curse far too crude to ever use in the presence of his Commander General. In spite, he cursed again, for Washington’s sake, reminded of the reason why he was suffering so. 

He had shot Charles Lee. 

Alexander closed his eyes for a moment. The look on Laurens’ face as he had gathered his pack and left his tent was one he hated to see, but it had been behind his eyelids every time they fell. Subconsciously, he rubbed his right shoulder again, remembering the feeling of the gun in his hand cocking it back quick, the puff of powder in his vision that had cleared to reveal Charles Lee recumbent in the arms of Burr. It had been a dangerous sort of satisfaction come over him in that moment. 

The frustration and confusion Alexander had felt the moment the words _go home_ had been bellowed by Washington’s low tenor still lingered, like a fresh wound. Had his rational brain a say, it would reason that Washington was not out of place for dismissing him. Yes, even he would admit his actions had been foolhardy (to put it tamely), but the entire ordeal could have been resolved if the man would just place an ounce of the trust he so widely acclaimed towards him into action. 

After all, Alexander hadn’t joined this war to sit around and pen poems for the sake of Washington’s eager people all day. It pained him to see Lafayette and Laurens lead a charge, and have to be the one to once again heed to another’s commands. It wasn’t jealousy as much as it was longing. Longing to bring about the change they all strived for in every skirmish to action _himself_ , to let free the myriad of ideas that bubbled insistently in his brain, to put in motion what lay stagnant for too long. 

Frankly, his dismissal had felt more like a blow to his behind than a slap on the wrist, as Washington had soothed him it was. 

_“Take a few months at home. We don’t want any retaliation on account of your folly. Moreover, we cannot have this kind of dissension front and centre. As my right hand, you cannot breed this in my men.”_

“As if it were my fault, _my_ doing.” Alexander mumbled aloud, tucking his journal away and folding his arms even tighter over his chest. “Readily ignoring the fact of Lee’s hearsay that lead me into this … dissension is the least of our worries in the face of the redcoats on every side. A little bit of dissension might spur some courage in the fustilarian paper skulls that call themselves soldiers! But instead, General Washington bids me to button my lips and bite my -“

Another jolt knocked Hamilton into the side wall of the carriage once more, causing him to promptly bite his tongue. _Hard_. 

Cursing against the irony of it all, teeth gritted, Alexander clamoured forward just enough to protrude his head out the window. He banged one hand on the roof of the thing to get the driver’s attention.

The man turned and gave him a wild stare. “Mr. Hamilton, are you mad?!”

“Indeed, sir, I _am_ mad! Now that I have been jostled about like dice in the hands of a gambler for over four hours, I very well am of unsound mind!” Alexander spat back, “What heeds your ability to steer us in a straight line, pray tell? Or should I take this query up with the man who hired you?”

The driver drew his brow together, “I employ my own!”

“Then, good sir, I advise you change your career path - if you can direct yourself there, that is!”

“I advise you to hold your tongue, sir - “

“Regrettably, it has already been held between my own teeth thanks to your paltry, insufferable ability to simply follow a straight heading! I sincerely hope, sir, that you do not transport anyone in a fragile state, for I would fear not only for their life but your own - "

The carriage came to a halt. Alexander’s gut jolted against the window frame, but that blow was nothing next to how hard he was thrown onto the ground by his collar moments later. When he managed to get the wind back in him, only a cloud of dust remained from where the carriage had been. 

“I do suppose … I deserved that.” Alexander pushed himself upright, “Good riddance, in some ways."

When back onto his feet, the man considered his surroundings for the first time during his journey. He recognized the colour of the fields, spans of tawny wheat that stretched for miles beyond what he could see, an indication of a fast approaching autumn. A breeze with a cool edge sifted through his hair, and he turned towards it. The road ahead seemed foreign, but behind indicated what seemed to be a town; he must have been somewhere in the middle of the Pastures.

“Forward on, then.” Alex muttered, brushing the last of the dust from his sleeves as he trudged ahead. 

For the first time, now out of his own head with thanks to the fresh air, he thought upon his wife. Eliza. His heart swelled, a bit. How cross she would be in finding him, and in such a state! Yet, how cross she would be in finding him stumbling home in _any_ state. As dearly as he longed to hold her again, to see that smile she gave to him alone, he did not want to nettle unnecessarily. 

Alexander paused, shoes scuffing the ground as he glanced behind himself. He may have been better off finding lodgings in an inn, staying out of the way … 

But something in him urged him against it. Maybe it was the echo of the urgency in Washington’s tone, that edge of pleading he had rarely heard, a caution against his ready disposal of his own life. 

_Your wife needs you alive._

Hamilton figured he best ensure she knew he was. 

* * *

It had taken him nearly three more hours until he arrived at the gate of the Schuyler Mansion, an exhausted and extremely humbled man. There was never a time more, he figured, he wished for something to carry his feet along; he held his shoes in his left hand, having shed them hours ago when the blisters distracted him even beyond his thoughts. 

Surprisingly, as he plowed slowly like a prodigal towards the house, there was a figure standing there on the veranda. Alexander was too far to suppose which of the sisters it was, but he hoped whoever it ended up being didn’t think him some tramp and send Phillip Schuyler to shoo him away. 

Luckily, the figure made no indication of distress as he grew close enough to recognize their face. Those dark brown eyes were unmistakably hers, and Alexander felt the smile on his face far faster than he managed to muster his voice to call out to her.

“Dearest Eliza!” However sore he was, his feet quickened their pace, “I can assure you, there is reason behind … my appearance …”

Alexander had made it just a few feet away from the steps when he noticed. Eliza, usually stately in her posture as a women of her status was expected to be, carried an air to her stance that was unfamiliar. The countenance about her was mysterious and bright, so vibrant Alex felt his words stutter at the sight. 

“… a-as I take that ... there is reason behind yours.” 

Steps were slower as he continued his approach, noting her silence was deliberate. _She is playing our game_ , Alexander noted, that impish look in her eye there. _And she is playing it well._

His eyes scanned her face, again and again, but he could not see what it was. Eliza was before him, then, and she laughed at his wide-eyed bewilderment. 

“You look just as a young boy who has lost his plaything.” Eliza soothed, taking his hand in her own, “But you are looking in the wrong place, Alexander.”

Gently, she guided his palm up, letting the fingers splay out as she pulled it to her midsection, and placed it firmly, assuredly, there. 

It was a long moment before Alexander blinked, needing no explanation for the gesture but overtaken by it all. The entire time, his eyes were caught with Eliza’s, and he could suddenly read her again, finding comfort in her gaze like he did with a well-worn novel. 

Alexander embraced his wife, and remembered how her arms around him were far more dear than anything he could describe. 

For the first time he could recall, he had nothing to say. At least, for a moment. 


End file.
